The STATE of the JUDICIARY in Texas
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The STATE OF THE JUDICIARY in Texas Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson Presented to the 79th Legislature February 23, 2005 Austin, Texas THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS WALLACE B. JEFFERSON Justices Chief Justice NATHAN L. HECHT PRISCILLA R. OWEN HARRIET O’NEILL DALE WAINWRIGHT SCOTT A. BRISTER DAVID M. MEDINA PAUL W. GREEN THE TEXAS COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS SHARON KELLER Judges Presiding Judge LAWRENCE E. MEYERS TOM PRICE PAUL WOMACK CHERYL JOHNSON MIKE KEASLER BARBARA P. HERVEY CHARLES R. HOLCOMB CATHY COCHRAN Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson STATE OF THE JUDICIARY Presented to the 79th Legislature February 23, 2005 Austin, Texas GOVERNOR PERRY, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR DEWHURST, SPEAKER CRADDICK, DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I am honored to appear before you for my inaugural “State of the Judiciary” address, one of the unique privileges afforded to me as Chief Justice. As you know, I was appointed by Governor Rick Perry to fill the vacancy left when Chief Justice Tom Phillips retired. Tom Phillips devoted his life to the Court, and to the judiciary, and has received much-deserved praise for his service to Texas. I am sure I have the authority to order yet another plaque for this giant Texan. I choose instead to honor his example by speaking passionately about how the judiciary can best meet its responsibility to the people of Texas, to litigants in our courts, and to all who expect our halls of justice to be fair and impartial. The state of our judiciary is strong; made strong by those, like Chief Justice Phillips, who have dedicated their lives to the great public enterprise of preserving our state and national constitutions and to protecting and defending laws that ensure we remain a government of the people. Some would say that the judiciary, lacking the power of the purse or the means of enforcement, is the weakest governmental branch. I disagree, because our legislature understands that a law construed erroneously threatens lawmaking. Our governor knows that an edict ignored is lawlessness. And I need not remind this audience, who knows of the Treaty Oak, that a weak branch often signals trouble in the roots. Judicial Compensation While strong, the judiciary currently faces a challenge that calls for legislative and executive action. The challenge is to fund the judiciary at a level sufficient to retain our most capable and experienced judges. Texas is losing judges at all levels of the judiciary due, at least in part, to salaries that have not kept pace with the times. Ask Judge Harvey Brown, Justice Murry Cohen, and my former colleague Craig Enoch if inadequate compensation played a role in their departures from the bench. And let us admit to ourselves that the judiciary suffers from the loss of their expertise, integrity and experience. Teddy Roosevelt once said: “It is not befitting the dignity of the nation that its most honored public servants should be paid sums so small compared to what they would earn in private life that the performance of public service by them implies an exceedingly heavy pecuniary sacrifice.”1 Those words are as true today as they were in 1908. Texans deserve to walk into a Texas courtroom knowing that their cases will be heard by women and men of talent and experience, judges who have been recruited from among the most capable and successful lawyers. I want all Texans in every area of the state, and all litigants from outside the state who are properly before Texas courts, to have access to a judiciary that includes the most capable, the most dedicated, and the most knowledgeable and experienced. All too often, our brightest and most experienced judges are leaving the bench, moving on to other opportunities outside the judiciary. It is no secret that judges double or triple their salaries by returning to the private sector. Even judges who choose some other form of public service – those who teach in our public law schools or who are honored with an appointment to the federal bench – increase their salary by 40% or more. Our most distinguished jurists accept the call to judicial service not for monetary compensation but out of devotion to the rule of law. Judges in our state willingly accept a degree of personal financial sacrifice in exchange for that privilege. But if we ask judges to sacrifice too much, Texas will be left without the experienced judiciary that it surely deserves. Today, we are asking too much. I have not been alone in noting the emergence of a developing trend. Our most experienced judges are leaving the bench, replaced by others who, although dedicated and intelligent, are not equipped to handle those cases as efficiently as their experienced predecessors. Of course, we benefit from the recruitment of new judges, who add energy and innovation to the judiciary, but a large-scale replacement leads inevitably to uncertainty and inefficiency. A transitory judiciary is inevitable (I am sad to say) if a judge can serve only as long as his or her savings permit. We do not want a judiciary in which judges serve with a view toward how their rulings will advance or detract from resumes they prepare in contemplation of a short tenure in office. This, I think, is what is meant by judicial independence – the conviction to rule courageously without regard to such personal considerations. Today, the salary of our state judges is less than even that of a first-year associate at a large firm and pales in comparison with other states: In the 1980s, Texas ranked 5th among the 50 states for judicial compensation at the courts of last resort. Today, Texas ranks 39th. Texas’s intermediate court salaries rank 34th, and trial court salaries rank 28th. An inexperienced judiciary takes a toll on the citizens of the state: it delays justice by prolonging child custody decisions, slowing criminal trials, and necessitating new trials. 1 Eighth Annual Message, December 8, 1908. It also takes an economic toll: business leaders have reported, in survey after survey, that they are more likely to invest in states whose courts can offer judicial efficiency and consistency. In 2004, for example, a United States Chamber of Commerce national survey listed business leaders’ top concerns about the legal environment.2 They were most concerned about punitive damages, an area recently addressed by the Texas Legislature. Close behind, however, were concerns about “judicial competence” and “timeliness of decisions.” These issues even outranked concerns about workers’ compensation, product liability, and reform of the jury system. Because businesses invest in states with a strong judiciary, state support of the judiciary is an economically sound decision even in these days of tight budgets. A study performed by the Perryman Group, an economic research firm, reports that a relatively modest investment in judicial salaries will more than pay for itself through increased business activity and increased state revenues. The goal of an efficient, effective judiciary was recognized from the earliest days of our Nation and of our beloved Texas. Indeed, in his message to the Sixth Congress of the Republic of Texas, President Sam Houston said: “To maintain an able, honest, and enlightened judiciary should be the first object of every people.” The framers of the United States Constitution also understood the importance of an efficient, experienced judiciary; they wrote into the Constitution a provision forbidding any reduction in federal judges’ salaries.3 Early on, the United States Supreme Court recognized that this constitutional provision was enacted, in its words, “not to benefit the judges, but . to attract good and competent [judges] to the bench and to promote that independence of action and judgment which is essential to the maintenance of the guaranties, limitations and pervading principles of the Constitution and to the administration of justice without respect to persons and with equal concern for the poor and the rich.”4 John Marshall, a Revolutionary War hero and former Chief Justice of the United States, aptly noted that “[t]he Judicial Department comes home in its effects to every man’s fireside; it passes on his property, his reputation, his life, his all.”5 Two centuries later, the statement still rings true: the judiciary handles child custody cases, criminal prosecutions, contract matters, and much more. There is not a citizen in Texas whose life has not, in some way, been touched by the judicial system. I must pause here to recognize the progress on judicial compensation made during this legislative session. In fact, even before the session began, and before my appointment as Chief, Governor Perry expressed his concern that the current compensation structure for judges impedes his ability to recruit men and women of obvious merit when vacancies arise. The Governor’s concern has recently been reflected in his proposed state budget, 2 2004 U.S. Chamber of Commerce State Liability Systems Ranking Study, March 3, 2004, available at http://www.instituteforlegalreform.org/pdfs/2004%20full%20report.pdf. 3 U.S. CONST. art III, Sec. 1. 4 O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 533 (1933) 5 Id. (quoting DEBATES OF THE VIRGINIA STATE CONVENTION OF 1829-1830, pp. 616, 619) which urges restoration of adequate funding for appellate courts and an increase in judicial compensation “to maintain the quality of our judicial system” and “to attract and retain qualified judges.”6 Likewise, in her comprehensive analysis of judicial pay, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn recognized that “Texas should ensure that its judiciary is qualified, experienced, stable and justly compensated.”7 And leaders in the legislature have begun the difficult task of crafting legislation designed with one goal – to assure that justice remains in capable hands.